“It’s time to go,” I said as I looked for my purse. Josiah was ready by the door, wearing his backpack. Daniel was dawdling. “Where are your shoes?”

“Who knows.” Five-year-old Daniel shrugged. “It’s a mystery.”

I tried not to laugh.

How many hundreds of times in my life have I asked children to go find their shoes?

I’m lucky to still get to do it occasionally, thanks to the early work and school schedules of my daughter and son-in-law. I love living close enough to help them out when they need it. Even when it often involves searching for shoes.

I sent Daniel to look in my bedroom. Around 7:05 am, he and our dog Rosie had performed their traditional squealing/barking race through the house. It always ends on my bed, now a cyclone of covers and pillows.

Nope. No shoes there.

“Look!” I spotted them behind the bars of the open safety gate at the top of the stairs.

“They look like they’re in prison!”

The boys have had lots of questions about prison lately and I’ve been doing my best with the answers. (No, prisons don’t take children. Every kid makes bad choices from time to time. Like this morning when you fed Josiah that apple slice you found in our trash.)

“DON’T WORRY, SHOES!” Daniel said, reaching behind the bars. “I WILL FREE YOU TO NEW ADVENTURES ON MY FEET!”

Well, that was a positive thing to say. Especially considering I was about to drop him off at camp, where just yesterday Daniel saw his big brother from afar and shouted, “Can you please come hug me?”

“No,” Josiah shouted back. “I have to kick this ball.”

Daniel found a camp counselor and tugged on his shirt. “See those buses over there?” Daniel asked. “Could you please use one of those to drive me to my house?”

For the record, Josiah did manage to find time in his busy ball-kicking schedule to give his little brother a quick hug. “There. Now try to make friends, all right?”

Before the afternoon was over, Daniel had taken his advice to heart. He met a boy, they told each other their names, and voilà! Instant friends!

We finally got our shoes on, I found my purse, and I drove them to camp. As we inched through the drop-off line, Josiah climbed into the front seat so he wouldn’t have to wait on his brother. Daniel took a little longer to get his backpack on. “Have a great day, sweetie!” I said. “New adventures for your feet, right?!”

He gave me a sheepish grin, rolled his eyes like a miniature teenager, and shut the door. He didn’t look back. I watched, just in case.

All morning long, I wondered how it was going. Why didn’t I let him stay home with me?

But you need your writing time. Your project, remember? You’ve got to finish it!

This is good for him! He already has a friend, right? At least he knows the boy’s name.

I picked the boys up at 1pm.

“Lala, guess what!” Daniel said, buckling himself into his booster seat. “My friend remembered my name!”

“That’s great, honey!”

“I know it’s great. We’re real friends now. And that’s not all.” He showed me some sticky Starburst wrappers. “My counselors gave me candy so I’d be happy.”

“Nice!”

“HEY! You got candy? ” Josiah said. “That’s not fair!”

“Yeah,” Daniel said. “I remember I said it wasn’t fair when you got to go to Harry Potter Camp and I had to stay home with Lala.”

“Oh. Right.” Josiah reached over and patted his knee.

Daniel curled his lip into a smile. “But then she took me to the doughnut shop and I got a s’mores one. And you didn’t get to go. Sad for you.”

“Yeah,” Josiah said, looking out the window. “But I didn’t care. I was busy at Platform Nine and Three Quarters, boarding the Hogwarts Express.”

“Oh.” Daniel frowned at his sticky wrappers.

Josiah looked at him. “It wasn’t as great as it sounds,” he said. “It was just two couches they’d pushed together.”

A minute later, I looked in the rear view mirror and caught Josiah handing Daniel an old happy meal toy he couldn’t reach.

I headed to the nearest doughnut shop.

Friends are great and all, even when you know their names. But brothers are forever.